SWATTING THE SPY
Now I’m going to tell you about how we collected books for soldiers and
especially about Pee-wee’s big stunt.
The next morning we started out and by night we had over five hundred
books. Mr. Ellsworth said they were mostly light literature, but if he
had only had to carry fifty of them on his shoulder like I did, he’d
have thought they were pretty heavy literature, believe _me_.
This is the way we fixed it. The Raving Patrol (that’s Pee-wee’s patrol,
you know) used Doctor Harris’s five-passenger Fraud car. It didn’t go
very good and Pumpkin Odell (Raven) said he guessed it was because the
wheels were tired—that’s a joke. They held up all the houses in Little
Valley. That’s about sumpty-seven miles or so from Bridgeboro. They’ve
got two stores there and a sign that says “Welcome to Automobilists” and
how they’ll be arrested if they don’t obey the speed laws. Welcome to
jail—good night!
The Elk Patrol (that’s our new patrol, you know) went over to East
Bridgeboro with Pinky Dawson’s express wagon (one horsepower) and _some_
horse—I wish you could see him. The Elks were a pretty lively bunch,
I’ll say that, and they cleaned out all the private libraries in East
Bridgeboro. They even got cook-books and arithmetics and books about
geometry—pity the poor soldiers.
The Silver Fox Patrol took care of Bridgeboro. That’s the best patrol of
the whole three. I’m leader of the Silver Foxes. The Ravens call us the
Silver-plated Foxes, but that’s because we call them the Raving Patrol
and the reason we call them the Raving Patrol is on account of Pee-wee.
Let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, the Silver Foxes took care of
Bridgeboro. Brick Warner (he’s red-headed) has a Complex car or a
Simplex, or whatever you call it—I should worry. I mean his father has
it. He’s got a dandy father; he gave Brick five dollars so that we could
have a blow-out at lunch time. Oh, boy, we had two blowouts and a
puncture.
We got over two hundred books that day—light literature, dark
literature, all colors. I could tell you a lot of things that happened
that day, because we did a lot of good turns, and one bad turn, when we
grazed a telegraph pole. What cared we? But you’ll care more about
hearing of Pee-wee and the raving Ravens and how they made out.
Anyway, I guess I might as well tell you now about the scouts in my
patrol. Don’t ever borrow trouble, but get to be a patrol leader, and
you’ll have troubles of your own. Then you can pick out the one you want
and I’ll drown the rest. After that I’ll tell you about the grand drive
in Little Valley.
First in the Silver Fox Patrol comes Roy Blakeley—that’s me. I’m patrol
leader and I’ve got eleven merit badges. I’ve got two sisters too. One
of them is crazy about the movies.
I’ve got seven scouts to look after and Captain Kidd, the parrot—he’s
our mascot. Our patrol color is green and he’s green with a yellow neck.
He’s got one merit badge—for music. _Good night_! Then comes Westy
Martin, and Dorry Benton and Huntley Manners and Sleuth Seabury, because
he’s a good detective, and Will Dawson and Brick Warner and Slick Warner
and that’s all.
Now I’ll tell you about the raving Ravens. Of course, I can’t tell you
all that happened in Little Valley that day, because I wasn’t there. Doc
Carson said they had trouble with the motor and Pee-wee. He said that
Pee-wee kept running wild all day. But anyway they brought back a lot of
books with them, I’ll say that much.
Well, when the day’s drive was over, we all took our books to the troop
room and piled them up on the table, and waited for Mr. Ellsworth to
come. He usually comes home from the city on the Woolworth Special. We
call it the Woolworth Special because it gets to Bridgeboro at five ten.
Along about six o’clock he showed up, and we began sorting out the
books. The biggest pile was brought in by the Ravens, and when he
noticed a pile of about twenty or thirty books tied with a brown cord,
he asked where those came from. Then up jumped Pee-wee, very excited,
and said:
“I’ll tell you about those.”
“Do tell,” said Elmer Sawyer, winking at me.
“Good night! Pee-wee’s got the floor,” shouted Westy.
“Floor!” shouted Dorry Benton. “He’s got the walls and the ceiling and
the mantelpiece and everything.”
“Will you pay a little attention?” Pee-wee screamed.
“We’re paying as little as possible,” I told him.
“You’re the worst of the lot,” he yelled; “that pile of books, the ones
with the brown cord, were given to us by a kindly old gentleman; he——”
“A which?” Doc Carson said.
“Don’t you know a kindly old gentleman when you see one?” Pee-wee fairly
screamed.
“Let’s see one,” Artie shouted.
And that’s the way it went on till Mr. Ellsworth came to Pee-wee’s
rescue like he always does. He said we should let Pee-wee have the
chair.
“Here’s a couple of chairs for him,” we shouted.
“He can have the table too, if he wants it,” I said; anything to keep
him quiet.
“I don’t want to be quiet,” Pee-wee screamed.
Good night, that was some meeting. Well, pretty soon Mr. Ellsworth got
us all throttled down and Pee-wee started to tell us about his visit to
the kindly old gentleman. It seemed that was one of the houses that
Pee-wee called at alone and the kindly old gentleman fell for him like
grown up people mostly do. I don’t know what it is but everybody seems
to like Pee-wee. You know just because you jolly a fellow, it’s not a
sign you don’t like him. Pee-wee is one bully little scout, I’ll say
that much.
“Do you want to hear about it?” he said.
“Proceed with your narrative,” I told him; “begin at the beginning, go
on till you come to the end, then stop.”
“Be sure to stop,” Westy said.
Well, then Pee-wee went on to tell us about the kindly old gentleman. He
lived in a big white house, he said, with grounds around it and a big
flag pole on the lawn, with a flag flying from it. He said that the old
gentleman didn’t talk very good English and he thought maybe he was a
German or French or something or other. He guessed maybe he was a
professor or something like that. Anyway, he took Pee-wee through his
library, picking out the books he didn’t want, till he had given him
about twenty or thirty. Then they tied them up in a brown cord and
Pee-wee took them out to the Fraud car.
Well that’s about all there was to it, and I guess nothing more would
have happened, if I hadn’t untied the cord and picked up the book that
lay on top. It was a book about German history, princes and all that
stuff, and I guess it wouldn’t interest soldiers much. Just as I was
running through it, I happened to notice a piece of paper between the
leaves, which I guess the old gentleman put there for a book-mark. As
soon as I picked it up and read it, I said, “Good night! Look at this,”
and I handed it to Mr. Ellsworth. It said something about getting
information to Hindenburg, and about how a certain German spy was in one
of the American camps in France.
Mr. Ellsworth read it through two or three times, and then said, “Boys,
this looks like a very serious matter. You said the old gentleman spoke
broken English, Walter?”
That’s the name he always called Pee-wee.
“Cracky,” I said, “Pee-wee’s kindly old gentleman is a German spy.”
“Sure he is,” said Westy Martin, “and he’s only flying the American flag
for a bluff, he’s a deep dyed villain.”
“He can’t be dyed very deep,” said Doc Carson, in that sober way of his;
“because we haven’t any German dyes to dye him with.”
I was just going to say something to kid Pee-wee along, when I noticed
that Mr. Ellsworth was very serious, and Pee-wee was staring like a
ghost.
“Boys,” Mr. Ellsworth said, “I have no idea of the full meaning of this
paper.” Then he said how maybe in collecting books we had caught a spy
in our net. He said that he was going to take the paper anyway and show
it to the Federal Commissioner, down in the Post Office Building.
“If he’s a spy, we’ll swat him all right,” I said.
“We’ll more than swat him,” Mr. Ellsworth said, and I could see by the
look in his eye that he meant business.